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About the author
Alan Furst is widely recognised as the master of the historical spy novel. Now translated into eighteen languages, he is the author of thirteen novels including MISSION TO PARIS, SPIES OF THE BALKANS - a TV Book Club choice - THE SPIES OF WARSAW, which became a BBC mini-series starring David Tennant and THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT. Born in New York, he lived for many years in Paris, and now lives on Long Island.
www.alanfurst.net
Summary
Paris, 1938. A shadow edges over Europe. Democratic forces are locked in struggle, while in Spain the war has already begun.
Cristin Ferrar, a handsome Spanish lawyer in Paris, is a well-connected man. Ferrar is approached to help a clandestine agency supply weapons to beleaguered Republican forces and agrees, putting his life on the line.
Joining Ferrar in his mission is an unlikely group of allies: idealists and gangsters, arms traders and aristocrats, including Max de Lyon, a man hunted by the Gestapo, and the Marquesa Maria Cristina, a refined beauty with a taste for danger.
From libertine nightclubs in the City of Light to volatile bars by the docks in Gdansk, Furst paints a spell-binding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare - and the heroes and heroines who fought back.
Foreword
Alan Furst ('America's pre-eminent spy novelist' NEW YORK TIMES; 'in a class of his own' William Boyd) returns with a thrilling new novel set during the tense build-up to World War II
Additional text
Acclaimed author Alan Furst expertly unfolds a ripping yarn of derring-do that manages, with no apparent breaking of sweat, to pay homage to his spy thriller-writer heroes (Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, Alaister McLean, Dennis Wheatley and, perhaps most resonantly, John le Carre) while simultaneously forging a highly individualistic streak... Furst has been writing - evocatively, intuitively, and with a level of clear-headed knowledge and extensive research... about this pre-war period of time from the late 1980s... If you're familiar with Furst's work you'll know what to expect: old-fashioned yet sophisticated, highly intelligent adventure novels with an underlying cinematic sensibility. If you're not familiar, then perhaps it's time to start?
